Can I use Firebug on non-Firefox browsers?

Using Firebug

For Beginners

Opening Firebug

Firefox 3.6 and earlier: click the Firebug button in the bottom right corner of Firefox.
Firefox 4.0: the Firebug Start button maybe be in the bottom 'add-on' bar or the top 'tool-bar' or you may have removed it. Sorry this was not our design choice.

Resetting All Options

To reset all of the Firebug options to their defaults, open Firebug Icon Menu (upper left corner) > Options > Reset All Firebug Options.

Enable Firebug (1.4+)for specific sites

Firebug uses a very straight forward activation solution:

Firebug is disabled on sites by default. If you don't open Firebug while viewing a site, Firebug is not active.

Firebug is enabled on sites when you open Firebug on that site. This setting is 'sticky': if you stop using a site and return to it later, Firebug will be enabled on that site.

If you no longer want to debug a site with Firebug, close Firebug on that site with the "Off" button, the right most of three red buttons in the upper right corner.

The panel enablement is completely separate from the site activation. Use the mini-menu on the panel tab to set the panels one by one, or right click on the Firebug Status bar icon to control all of the panels at once. You can enable just the Net panel and or just the Script panel or both. The Console requires the Script panel, so enabling the Console also enables the Script panel. These setting are 'sticky' and remain in effect until you change them.

How to Enable/Disable Firebug 1.2

The logic behind enabling and disabling Firebug has been changed in 1.2. Since this version, every panel that could have negative impact on Firefox performance can be enabled and disabled separately. Thus there is no need to disable entire Firebug.

The following panels are activable. Notice that all these panels are disabled by default.

Console - Firebug's JavaScript Console

Script - JavaScript Debugger

Net - Network Monitor

A new activation menu has been introduced to make easy to enable/disable appropriate panel. This menu is located directly on the panel's tab (there is a little drop-down next to the tab label).

This menu can be used to enable/disable specific Firebug panel for:

the current site (e.g. the Enable debugger for www.google.com menu-item)

all sites (e.g. the Enable debugger menu-item)

Also, if a panel is disabled, its content is replaced by a form that allows one-click activation of multiple panels - for the current site - at once.

See some screenshots of the activation UI here.
Source and Extending Firebug

Firebug Internals (on a real wiki)

A comprehensive tutorial and a sample XPI for extending firebug.

A HelloWorld for extending Firebug.

Readme file for branches of source tree

Using the Tracing Version of Firebug

First follow the instructions from the preceding section to create a new Firefox profile.

Open Firebug, then open the tracing panel from the Firebug Icon menu (upper left in Firebug)

In the Tracing window Option tab, set ERRORS on, switch to the Log tab.

Try your problem page/function.

Look for error messages in the log. You can export the trace with the button at the top.

To get help, open an issue report and attach the trace.

For problems with breakpoints, set UI_LOOP and BP, and SOURCEFILES

For problems with Console, set CONSOLE and ACTIVATION

For problems where Firebug UI is acting, set DISPATCH, ACTIVATION, and PANELS

For crashes or hangs, run from the OS console with this about:config preference true:

extensions.firebug-tracing-service.DBG_toOSConsole

Editing Pages

Can I save to the source the changes I made to the webpage I'm seeing?

Right now you can't.
As John J. Barton wrote on the newsgroup:

Editing in Firebug is kinda like taking out the pickles from and
adding mustard to a restaurant sandwich: you can enjoy the result, but
the next customer at the restaurant will still get pickles and no
mustard.

This is a long requested functionality, so someday it'll be available directly from Firebug. Meanwhile, you can try Firediff, an extension for firebug by Kevin Decker.

How can I output all changes that have been made to a site's CSS within firebug?

Does Firebug interfere in any way with jQuery's '$' shortcut?

Although Firebug uses the '$' notation, it doesn't interfere with your code. Sometimes you may have issues testing code in the console, but can easily avoid them by using the jQuery's alternative notation:

jQuery('div');

Instead of:

$('div');

Firebug Console

I get an error: "console is not defined"

When console is enabled, the console object is made available to the page's javascript. If it is not enabled, "console is not defined" will appear in the Firefox error console.

How to Enable Console?

Click on grayed-out console tab. Click on small arrow to see tab menu.

Firebug DOM Panel

What do the different colors of the variables mean?

Bold Black are objects

Not so bold Black are DOM objects

Get in Gray in front means "getter"

Bold green are user functions

Not so bold Green are DOM functions

Bold Red are constructor functions

Firebug Versions

Version 1.05: check using Firefox->Tools->Addons->Firebug. Version number on the panel.

Version 1.1: check using Firebug->BugMenu->About

Version 1.2+: hover on the Firefox status bar icon for Firebug

Installation Issues

Firefox 3.0

Firebug versions prior to 1.2, or later than 1.5, won't work on Firefox 3.0.

Disable any Antivirus or BackUp program you may have running and then install Firebug.

It may be that some software is stopping Firefox creating the file structures needed for the installation process.

Run Firefox as Administrator. It may be the same as in reason 2, because firefox doesn't have enough permissions.

Manually install Firebug.

This can be done easily, just unzip the XPI (it's a normal zipped file with the extension changed) in your extensions folder, inside your profile. You should unzip firebug's XPI content inside a folder named 'firebug@software.joehewitt.com'. Do this with Firefox closed.

The crash information is available after you let the crash reporter log to to mozilla. You can read the report by using "about:crashes" as a URL in a reopened Firefox. This link should be supplied in any bug report; it sometimes takes several minutes for the server to digest the incoming reports.

If diligent documenting of talkback incidents and corresponding bugzilla entries is needed, I'd like to help. Any thoughts?

More talkback traces would probably not help at this point. The best way to help would be to create test cases that crashes in the shortest possible wall-clock time. That will help developers pinpoint the problem.

Use the Mozilla talkback site to look for your Firefox stack trace by searching on Comment "firebug".

Hangs: Firefox or Firebug stops responding

A 'hang' means the program is still running (it did not crash) but it fails to respond to user commands. The causes and diagnosis is completely different from a crash.

Firefox starts but fails to show a user interface

To diagnose these problems we need to print messages from the application to see how far it gets. Here is how we do that:

Make sure you're not in one of the following conflicting situations:

if you have ZoneAlarm Pro installed on Windows, in Firefox go to Tools -> Add-ons -> Extensions: you should see "ZoneAlarm Toolbar"; version 1.5.53.29 of the extension conflicts with Firebug user interface, so you need to disable it in order to be able to use Firebug;

How do I report a bug?

To report a new one, go to the Bug Tracker and select "New Issue". Then follow the instructions indicated in the issue template.

As a reminder when you're about to report a new bug:

Give the version number for Firebug, Firefox and your OS, these are very important.

Firebug 1.5 will work with Firefox 3.5 and Firefox 3.6

Firebug 1.4 works with Firefox 3.0 and Firefox 3.5

Firebug 1.3 works with Firefox 3.0 and Firefox 2.0

Firebug Lite works with IE, Safari, and Opera

Provide a proper test case

This is of utmost importance!

A test case is a small example script or page, along with detailed step-by-step instructions on how to reproduce the problem. It helps a lot when trying to understand your problem. Nothing will be done regarding the issue until a proper test case is available!

Check that you have the issue "starred" so you receive emails when your issue goes in, when we have questions just you can answer or when other folks offer suggestions

Remember this is an open source project: the time you invest in explaining a bug goes a long way toward getting it fixed. Conversely, incomplete instructions without an example will probably be a waste of your time: no one will know what to do with the report and it will be ignored!

Which error messages from Firebug are a problem?

What do the issue status fields mean?

New is set for a new bug report.

NeedInfo is set if the report does not have enough info to decide if it is a Firebug error. The comment will include the info needed from the reporter.

Triaged is set after the issue has been read and it has been decided, that this is a Firebug issue. Tags will be added for the version, that has the bug, probable module, and one of the Test-case-needed/available flags.

Started is set to let others know that this bug is actively being worked on. (Optional)

Commit is set when a fix is committed to Subversion (SVN). A comment will also be added, that includes the revision number of the commit and the committers will have set "Owner" to themselves.

Fixed is set when the release is created. All bugs with Commit are marked Fixed and the release version number is put in the comment. The reporter should then verify, if the issue is now resolved.

Verified is set after the original poster reports that they tested the fix and it works.

ProbablyWorks is set for an old bug report, which was probably fixed but no direct action was taken to fix it.

InsufficientInfo is set for an old bug report with requests for user info, that was never supplied.

UserResolved is set when the reporter has a solution and no action was needed from the side of Firebug.

OtherComponent means there are strong reasons to believe that this problem is one, that can not be fixed in Firebug, but is a problem in another software.

Duplicate is set for issues, for which there is already another bug report on the same subject.

A special tag "Test-case-available" marks bug reports with test cases. These are given priority.

How do I request an enhancement for Firebug?

Requesting enhancements for Firebug is easy. Just start a new issue in the bug tracker and remember to start the summary with "Enhancement: ", so an administrator can later label the issue as an enhancement request.

Incompatible Firefox extensions

Sothink

If you have Sothink SWF Catcher extension installed, please upgrade it to the latest version.
This add-on has been upgraded to version 1.4.2. The conflict with Firebug is fixed.

Contributing to Firebug

How can I contribute to documentation?

Everyone: Edit this wiki. You just need to request an account; the editing is just like at Wikipedia.

Firebug Working Group Members: Edit the getfirebug.com site via perch. You need a special account for Perch, neillio and jjb are admins.